On Horizon, the truth is an insult to the
ever-outraged Kemi Badenoch
John Crace
The business secretary is a passionate defender of
free speech – apart from any criticism of her
Mon 19 Feb
2024 14.42 EST
It must be
exhausting to be Kemi Badenoch. That never-ending surge of rage. Not the
slightest effort to keep it repressed. Who knows what someone must have done to
Kemi when she was young to leave her that badly damaged? She is a woman in
urgent need of a therapist. Before she creates even more havoc.
There is no
feud, no imagined slight, no minor disagreement even, that she won’t pursue to
the ends of the earth. She can never dream of saying sorry. She lives in a
binary world of death or glory. There are no half measures.
Kemi has
yet to discover an occasion where she once might have been wrong. Where the
facts are open to interpretation. She lives for the thrill of the fight. She is
that Tory oxymoron. A passionate defender of free speech. Except where there is
some criticism being made of her. Then it is something that must be stamped
out. Vengeance shall be hers.
In some
parts of the Conservative party – primarily the intellectually deprived –
Badenoch is what amounts to the Last Hope. The last woman standing after the
annihilation of the next election, who will rise from the ashes to lead them
back into their own funeral pyre. The leader hell-bent on self-destruction.
There are still a handful of MPs who are aroused by the thought of a suicide
mission. One driven by fury.
If Badenoch
does have friends in low places– she is, after all, a member of the Evil
Plotters WhatsApp group despite insisting she remains loyal to Rishi Sunak at
every turn – there weren’t that many of them in the Commons to hear her
ministerial response to the Sunday Times interview in which Henry Staunton, the
sacked Post Office chair, had claimed he had been under orders to delay
compensation payments. Just a sad triumvirate of Conor Burns, Lee Anderson and
Brendan Clarke-Smith.
Not that
Kemi was bothered by the lack of support. She had her outrage – her
ever-faithful companion – as her comfort blanket. No woman could need more. She
could barely contain herself from the moment she set foot in the chamber.
Itching for the speaker to give her the nod. To let slip the dogs of the latest
culture war.
She briefly
had to remind herself of what she was so furious about this time. An
understandable hesitation as it’s so hard to keep up. Only that morning she had
written a hate screed in the Daily Mail about the actor Michael Sheen daring to
suggest that steelworkers were having a rough time. How dare a Welshman speak
about Wales!
Then the
business secretary connected with her latest rage fest. Staunton. Yes, she was
sorry that Sky and the Daily Mail should have found out about her decision to
sack Staunton before she had told him herself. Kemi was mystified how this had
happened. After all, she didn’t know anyone at the Daily Mail apart from the
editor, for whom she regularly writes. It must be so irritating to be thought
to be one of the leakiest members of the cabinet – a minister always happy to
give an unattributed quote – when to do such a thing would never cross your
mind.
As for
Staunton’s claims that the government had needed someone at the Post Office to
take the rap for the Horizon scandal and had also ordered him to delay the
compensation payments till after the election, that was all a lie. Badenoch
looked across the chamber, daring anyone to disagree with her. Begging them to
disagree with her. She had a semi-automatic assault rifle by her side and she
wasn’t afraid to use it.
Labour’s
shadow business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, chose not to engage. He wasn’t
entirely convinced that Kemi was telling the truth – she isn’t noted for her
veracity – but he couldn’t bring himself to get caught in the crossfire. So he
muttered a few platitudes about taking Badenoch’s word for it and looking
forward to her supplying documentary evidence. Kemi looked almost disappointed
that he had caved in so easily.
Others
weren’t so easily bought off, though. Some Labour – and a few Tory – MPs
pointed out that many Post Office operatives were having problems with slow and
derisory compensation claims. Hell, even the Post Office minister Kevin
Hollinrake, sitting loyally if nervously by Kemi’s side, had reported that the
government had been slow to deal with the scandal before the ITV drama.
Something the business secretary had just brazenly denied.
“What’s
your fucking problem, you fucking fucks?” was the subtext of almost every
subsequent exchange that Kemi had. She even managed to pick a fight with Kevan
Jones, one of the few MPs to have emerged with credit from the Horizon scandal.
A man who had done more to try to win cross-party support for the post office
operatives than almost anyone else in Westminster.
But in Kemi
world, you’re either with her or against her. And daring to suggest that he
would like to see some hard evidence before offering her his support crossed a
line. It was all very well slagging off Staunton in the Commons where she was
protected by parliamentary privilege. Let’s see her do it elsewhere. Preferably
not on Twitter, where Kemi has also been known to have extended rants
Badenoch
shook her head. This was just political point scoring. Something she would
never do. And how dare Labour also suggest the government was delaying
compensation for the infected blood scandal till after the election. Even
though we all know it to be true. But that’s the Kemi enigma. Even the truth is
a personal attack on her integrity. Especially the truth. The truth cannot be
tolerated. So Lee Anderson came to her rescue. Accusing Labour of doing
something it hadn’t done. Poor Lee. He really isn’t the sharpest pencil.
Still, Kemi
was having a better time of it than the unfortunate Bim Afolami. The no-mark
junior treasury minister who was forced to answer an urgent question on the
government’s magnificent achievement on tipping the economy into recession.
Jeremy Hunt was nowhere to be seen – he’s a genuine liability these days – and
the quarter-witted Laura Trott was in remedial debt classes.
So Nice But
Dim Bim was forced to take the hit. It was an embarrassment. Everything was
going to plan. Just no one had understood the plan was to bankrupt the country.
And yes, things could be better. Indeed they could. We could have Rachel Reeves
as chancellor. A serious grown-up. As it was, Dim Bim was laughed at for the
best part of 45 minutes. There is no greater humiliation.
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